I was stopped on a path the other day by the lady who arranges activities for the 'golden age', i.e. pensioners, on the kibbutz. I should note that these activities are very worthwhile and important, providing interesting things for these people to do and hear, getting them out of their homes and challenging their brains. It transpires that she wants to organise a set of talks about music, each one lasting for about an hour. Someone suggested that I would be able to provide a good talk.
As it happens, several years ago I put together a song list for an evening that I had entitled 'Folk into Rock' (strangely enough, the sub-title of a 4 lp compilation put together in 1975); this was meant for a series of talks that someone had put on, discussing various types of music (this same person will be giving a talk about Bob Dylan, who is the same age as most of the listeners). This series petered out and I lost the list, anyway. But in the back of my mind, the idea of giving a talk about semi-traditional folk music still existed, so I agreed to the proposal for the pensioners.
This time, I thought that I would take a song and play different versions, showing how malleable these songs could be. I made a short list of four songs: 'Nottamun Town', 'My Lagan love', 'Matty Groves' et al., and 'The water is wide'; all of these have multiple and varied versions, hence the malleability. I think that this stems from two factors: two of the songs (NT and MG) have very simple harmonic structures thus allowing them to be interpreted in different manners. The other two songs (MLL and TWIW) are richer harmonically; all of the versions of MLL that I found are very similar musically, but two versions have completely different lyrics (Kate Bush and Sandy Denny). The other reason for the malleability is that these songs (all strophic) have many verses, and to an extent the performer can choose which verses to sing. Two examples: the Fairport Convention version of NT lacks some of the verses of Jean Ritchie's version, and Joan Baez's version of TWIW includes two verses that I have not heard elsewhere. I must remember to mention prosody in connection with this song - on the line 'not a soul would look up', the tune goes up, and on the following line 'not a soul would look down', the tune descends.
The story of Matty Groves (Child 81) - or Little Musgrave - is worth an evening on its own. The basic story is told in all the versions: a titled lady casts her eyes on a servant who is commissioned for an evening of fun while the lady's husband, Lord Donald/Arnold/Barnard, etc, is away; the Lord returns, catches the lovers en flagrante then challenges the servant to a duel where of course the cuckolded husband has the advantage of knowing how to use a sword (writing that word, I wonder whether there is a double meaning hiding there: in one Peter Robinson novel, a character is described as a 'swordsman', i.e. someone who has good sex with many partners). As someone (probably Simon Nicol) once put it, this song has the main ingredients, sex and murder, that interest everyone. The twist that interests me is that there are different versions of the tune: for example, Jean Ritchie has a different tune from Joan Baez. Fairport threw a spanner in the works by setting the words to a completely different tune, 'Shady Grove', of which I found a bluegrass version by Doc Watson. Compounding their decision to muddy the waters, Fairport then tacked on yet another, unrelated, song as the instrumental coda ('Famous flower of serving men'), but I won't be including that in my talk.
Instead of playing all 19 verses of the original Fairport version - groundbreaking at the time, but now sounding slightly flat - I decided to keep the first half of this version then continue with a version from 2012 (including the Ikea curtains) whose arrangement is more dramatic and certainly more varied. This has Chris Leslie playing banjo, possibly a nod to Doc Watson; Simon playing it more or less straight; Peggy playing extremely funky bass; Ric playing free-form jazz; and Gerry holding it all together on the drums.
According to the Google page, there is also a Czech version (!) of this song that I am also including, by the group Asonance (they are definitely not assonant). I haven't a clue about the lyrics, and the music doesn't seem to have that much in common with the other versions. The flutes on this remind me very much of those of Lúnasa. I've just discovered why this version doesn't sound like the others: it's not the same song at all! I was listening to a song called Návrat krále - the return of the King - whereas I should have been listening to their easily recognisable version of 'Lord Bernard'.
I found seven different versions of TWIW: I very much wanted a simple, unaccompanied, version of the song but I think that no such version exists due to the implied harmonic richness of the song. In the end, I found a version by John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers that at least is unaccompanied; the first two verses are sung without harmony (making a divine sound, I should note) but then things get complicated. In the end, I edited this to use just the first two verses, using this heavenly sound to introduce this song.
I should have mentioned much earlier that I edited most of the songs: for starters, playing all of them in their entirety would have lasted about two hours, and I also have to speak, maybe even answer questions! Some of the versions are somewhat harrowing to the ear IMHO, and the number of verses that most songs have enables me to take one or two verses from one version, another two verses from another version, etc. I am including the first two verses of the version by Filska that is completely instrumental; this is the first version of this song that I ever heard, and for several years I thought that it was purely an instrumental tune, until I heard someone sing it with words. Finishing off the talk is a version by Yours Truly; I remember that when I came to record this (for the Folktronix project), I looked at the lyrics of several versions, some of which were the same and some were different. I decided which verses I chose to sing and I remember that I even altered a word or two (maybe even a complete line) - after all, this is the folk tradition, where everybody adds their own input.
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